Influencers as a method to catalyze post-COVID tourism growth
Travel dreaming has bottled up during COVID and social media influencers are an effective tool to bring those dreams to reality.
Influencer marketing is a type of online marketing that has dramatically increased in market share during the last decade. The tool is essentially celebrity endorsement in the contemporary social media context, where in this case celebrities are influential in the social media context and compete with massive brands neck-and-neck in social platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. Influencer marketing has proven to be a successful model for travel and tourism businesses, including tourism boards, tour companies, and tourism authorities, as it is a cost effective solution for customer acquisition and - if managed correctly - can allow travel organizations to easily view metrics.
Post-COVID, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok users that have absorbed travel content for the last 12 months will be looking for additional content to engage with now that travel restrictions are lessening. Influencers, during this time, have been sitting on a large array of content that they are waiting to post and have been building connections with tourism companies and boards to market their destinations once the COVID pandemic is in a more managed place later in 2021.
There is major potential for influencer content to catalyze travel growth and take advantage of the bottled up momentum building during the pandemic. One interesting statistic that came out of 2020 is that in light of the airline and travel industry reductions during the pandemic, nearly 80% of influencers report higher engagement rates than usual given the increase in social use during nation-wide lockdowns.
Social media influencers build trust with users and pull levers including travel desire, information and awareness, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decisions, experience sharing, reviews and satisfaction, and local stories. Since the start of 2021, tourism marketers have begun to re-engage social media influencers to improve and stimulate the desire to travel in general and then awareness of their destination as a clear and present travel choice. Travel organizations are positioning influencer marketing as a major marketing move as influencer brands have been rated as more valuable, due to the storytelling element. In a recent survey, 63% of social media users trust influencer messages more than messages that come from major commercial brands.
Tour companies, tourism authorities and tourism boards can use find and place influencers to augment existing marketing campaigns or to create new marketing campaigns. Successful influencers can accomplish the following for a destination:
Highlight a specific under-visited destination and influence followers to visit or plan to visit that destination
Socialize an existing campaign or brand that has been created by a destination (e.g. “Visit Indonesia”) which can direct consumers to the destination’s web page, social media page, or directly to Online Travel Agents (OTAs) for booking
Bring attention to a specific attraction, tour company, or hotel based on brand sponsorships or deals to bring awareness and increase visitors for specific locations
Trove works with destinations to source influencers, through our in-house influencer agency troveinfluence, as well as plan the campaign, utilizing a balance of sponsored posting, brand representation, on-going reviews and giveaways. To build effective influencer campaigns, Trove also works with destinations to craft the pitch, align on solid campaigns and build meaningful engagement. We perform the following activities:
Develop an influencer strategy
Identify influencer opportunities
Identify campaign touchpoints for influencer support
Utilize troveinfluence, our in-house influencer agency, for influencer matches
Create a week-by-week calendar
Track campaign successes and metrics
Define future opportunities and complete a “retrospective” or reflection of the effectiveness of the campaign
Trove brings the rigor and innovation of an ad agency to industry expertise in hospitality and tourism. We do not operate in a silo and we ensure that every organization we work with receives a comprehensive solution. There is no “one and done” solution here where - we work to meet the exact needs of the destination and build paid and organic search, digital marketing, social media and influencer media tactics, operate and manage campaigns, and develop content.
Learn more about our online marketing & social media team, here.
